Yesterday, the New York Times and the RAC were very much in sync.

In an editorial, the Times called on the Senate to restore workers’ civil rights by passing the Fair Pay Restoration Act. At the same time, we released a letter that Mark Pelavin, Associate Director of the RAC, sent to the Senate days earlier calling on them to do just that.

In the letter, he noted:

“When the Supreme Court ruled in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. that all wage discrimination cases had to be filed within 180 days of the first discriminatory pay check, it severely impeded decades of progress that protected a worker’s right to fair pay.”

Let’s hope the Senate passes the bill—and that the Times continues to follow our lead.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mayors are on the frontline of putting public policy into action. While (many of) the inhabitants of Washington, D.C. bloviate, local elected officials confront the real issues that affect people on a daily basis. So when mayors, or rather the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), talk, I listen.

The USCM recently released their annual report on hunger and homelessness in American cities; the results are not good.

The 23 cities surveyed across the country reported that they were generally not meeting the need for emergency food assistance. Last year, 17 percent of all people in need of food assistance and 15 percent of households with children were not receiving it; in 2008, 19 cities expect the demand for food assistance to increase.

The need for providing shelter for homeless persons is also not being met. More than half of the cities surveyed reported that they had to turn people away some or all of the time from homeless shelters.

The USCM report cited high housing costs and the lack of affordable housing as a major cause of homelessness in households with children, as well as a major cause of hunger.

“This report underscores the fact that issues of poverty in this country are often inter-related,” said Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, Co-Chair of the Conference’s Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness in a press release. “It is instructive in that we must deal with these issues collectively to make sustainable impact, but cities cannot handle these challenges alone. We need all levels of government, as well as the private sector, to partner with us.”

Mayor Cownie is right. Bashing Washington may be fun, but it can only go so far. Some problems are just too big for local governments to solve.

Which is why the USCM (again, love the mayors) also recently released their 10-point plan for ’08, which includes their policy priorities for the next president to consider along with glossy photographs of all the 2008 presidential hopefuls (now past and present).

Perhaps not surprisingly, the USCM calls for tackling many of today’s problems with the policy recommendations we at the RAC recommend. For example: passage of a “cap-and-trade” bill to limit carbon dioxide emissions (point #1), reinstatement of the assault weapons ban (#2), enactment of the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund (point #4), increased funding for Head Start, Food Stamps, and children’s healthcare (point #7), and approval of comprehensive immigration reform (point #8).

Mayors don’t (or at least shouldn’t) have the luxury of going off on ideological rants. While they do, children starve, bridges crumble, cities burn.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I began my job at the RAC in September of 2007, I knew nothing about waterboarding and I think it is safe to say few others did either. However, by October everyone knew about it.

Now in 2008, the discussion is back again.

Waterboarding as I am sure many of our readers are aware is an interrogation technique first used during the Spanish Inquisition described most often as “simulated drowning.” In this letter, Represenatives Nadler and Delehut argure very powerfully that waterboarding is actual drowning in that it makes the individual being interrogated experience the physical effects.

When he was the nominee for Attorney General Michael Mukasey was asked if he believed this technique was torture.  His response during his testimony was "If it amounts to torture… then it is not constitutional."  Because the answer was received unsatisfactorily, Mukasey attempted to clarify his view in a letter to members of the Senate Judiciary committee. “I have not been briefed on techniques used in any classified interrogation” he said, “but if confirmed I will review any coercive interrogation techniques currently used,” and in a moment of personal candor he added “[waterboarding] is repugnant to me.”

In other words:

Does Mukasey personally think waterboarding is torture? Yes.

Is it illegal? Maybe. 

Will you make it illegal if you become Attorney General?  I’ll tell you when I am attorney general.

Fast forward to today, January 30, 2008.  In a letter to the Judiciary committee, Mukasey said “a limited set of [interrogation] methods is currently authorized…waterboarding is not among these methods," however he continued “I do no believe it is responsible for me, as attorney general, to provide an answer [on the legality of waterboarding].”  Then, when pressed at the hearing he responded to the question “Would waterboarding be torture if it was done to you?” by saying "I would feel that it was."

Three months into his term as Attorney General we have learned little:

Does Mukasey personally think waterboarding is torture? Yes.

Is it illegal? Maybe. 

Will you make it illegal now that you have become Attorney General?  It is a question of legality that I simply cannot answer.

 

In other words, the questions are the same and essentially so are the answers.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With so much political reporting on the horserace of the 2008 Presidential election – that is, who is up in what poll and who made what political gaffe – it is refreshing to see some here in Washington who are focusing on the candidates policy differences. Today, our friends (no pun intended) over at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) released a very useful report on the views of the remaining Presidential candidates on three major issues of the 2008 election: Iraq, Iran, and Nuclear Non-Proliferation.

Hopefully others will take note of this report and others like it and push for further on the record statements regarding these issues of immense importance to all Americans.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Interfaith Youth Core was founded with mission of building bridges of mutual understanding between people’s of different faith backgrounds through social action or tikkun olam. It’s a hard task, especially given the current world climate where we constantly hear the media and our political leaders speak of religion as a divisive force in the world. Yes, we live in a world where, unfortunately, religiously motivated crimes still occur - the desecration of a cemetery, the burning of a house of worship, or the senseless act of attacking someone merely because they stand out as different. We hear how Jews and Muslims exist in a constant state of animosity as evidenced by the failure to achieve peace in the Middle East. We hear Buddhists and Hindis characterized in dismissive tones casting them as alien or foreign. What we don’t hear of enough is the work of organizations like the Interfaith Youth Core who seek to change the conversation about religion to be a positive one, one for social and moral change in our world. An organization which is certainly going places, the URJ is a friend of both the IFYC and its director Eboo Patel, having met with them here at the RAC and inviting them to present a workshop just last month at the URJ’s Biennial Convention in San Diego. Listen to a segment recently aired on Good Morning America about the Interfaith Youth Core and how together we can not only change the conversation about religion, but we can build bridges of mutual understanding to help peoples of faith find the similarities within one another.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We struggled this week to find something appropriate, productive, or helpful to do or say about the grim situation in the Gaza Strip.  We are not alone; I have not seen very much from other American Jewish organizations, perhaps because the facts on the ground keep changing and the prescription for progress is far from clear.

AIPAC, for example, published a new policy memo this week, highlighting the actions of Hamas (including, they report, preexisting plans to blow up the wall on Gaza’s border with Egypt) and answering some of the more damming charges against Israel.

In a statement released today, Americans for Peace Now calls for a “new way forward:”

This new way forward should include ending the blockade of Gaza.  It should also include urgent diplomatic efforts to address the security challenges associated with Gaza.  In particular, Israel should explore the possibility of achieving understandings with Hamas to end the violence, including a ceasefire or a "hudna," either through direct contacts or via third parties, including President Abbas. 

Perhaps it’s a sign of the difficulty of the hour, but I find myself agreeing with most of what both AIPAC and APN have to say!

But perhaps the best takes on the siltation I have read is by my friend Daniel Levy.   Writing on his blog, Prospects for Peace, Daniel offers a characteristically systematic analysis of the situation, and concludes that the top priority now should be a cease-fire:  

“The alternative is not only more human suffering and the continued pursuit of an ethically very un-Jewish collective punishment of the Gazan population but also the risk that an escalatory cycle keeps escalating, dragging everyone into a wider clash.  As today’s Egyptian border crossing events prove, what happens in Gaza will not stay in Gaza.”

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sherry Levy-Reiner, Ph.D., is the director of development at the RAC.

When I was a junior in college, I read War and Peace.  In the book, one female character leaves town and “drinks quinine.”  A student asked my professor what that meant.  He asked if anyone in the class knew the answer.  I raised my hand:  “People drink quinine to induce labor so they will abort.”

Every eyebrow in the classroom – including my professor’s – went up.  I shrugged, “That’s what you learn from living in a dormitory.”  It was true:  I knew students who had drunk quinine in very large quantities.  It worked.

By 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision recognizing that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses the right to choose abortion, I knew a lot about abortions.

A friend with whom I went to college had an illegal abortion, not quite in a back alley (that was the standard adjective for abortions in those days, “back-alley abortions”).  Those of us who were close to her didn’t know about it till after it was over.  When she talked about it, her primary concern was whether the abortion itself had caused her any long-lasting physical harm; only several years later, when she gave birth to a beautiful healthy wanted daughter, were her fears finally allayed.

Another friend had an abortion in New York, which was among the first states to liberalize its abortion laws in 1970.  Her procedure was in a hospital, where conditions were excellent and she was well cared for; she moved in with me briefly to look after her for a few days.

By 1975, I was living in Topeka, where the Kansas legislature tries annually to pass legislation that will reverse Roe v Wade.  One year I testified before the legislature, noting that Jews were beginning to understand the great toll of Jewish genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs.  I argued that no legislator should be in the room when a pregnant woman who learns she is carrying a Tay-Sachs baby has to decide what to do.  The pro-choice side prevailed again that year, but Kansas is not such a great state for choice these days.

So I’ve seen it both ways, and legal is better.  Just as it is difficult for people to comprehend exactly what life was like before computers or antibiotics, it is very hard for young people to grasp that the decision about whether or not to have an abortion is a right that must be protected.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This has been cross-posted at the New York Jewish Week's Blog

Looking back, my major problem with college was that we spent so much time analyzing what was wrong with the world and so little time trying to change it. Now, as an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), I spend every day advocating for a better world. It's certainly a full-time job--and a welcome change of pace.

I never took a politics class in college and my chosen medium for tikkun olam was generally direct service, so working at the RAC has come with a steep learning curve.

At first, I asked questions like, "Who is Harry Reid?" (Senate Majority leader) and "How many votes does it take to override a Presidential veto?" (two-thirds majority in both chambers).

But I've quickly become engaged, informed, and enthralled with the political process and the issues that I advocate for every day. I find myself making political jokes (that I would not even have understood 6 months ago), seeking out conversations about health care and religious freedom, and answering questions from friends about what's going on in Washington.

Many of my friends who recently graduated from college are stuck in jobs where their days are monotonous, their work menial, and their responsibilities minimal. I am on the other end of the spectrum. I am constantly busy-- shifting between tasks and political issues and maintaining a largely self-directed to-do list that is pages long. I lobby Congressmen, attend coalition and working group meetings, draft press releases and action alerts, write educational programs, teach students about the intersection between public policy and Jewish values, and call Rabbis across the country to encourage them to get more involved with the RAC's work.

And, I can only be a legislative assistant for a year, so I get to throw myself into the experience completely, without being too worried about burn-out or exhaustion. Though, I have to admit, all of this work can be quite tiring at times.

Every year, the RAC entrusts recent college graduates with the responsibility of conducting the RAC's legislative and educational programs. Each legislative assistant is given a portfolio of issues and full responsibility for the RAC's work in those areas. After negotiations with my fellow legislative assistants, I ended up with the fitting portfolio of Church/State separation, Education, Children's Issues, Bioethics, Health Care, and Mental Health.

This diverse portfolio allows for many wonderful opportunities, including the chance to work closely with Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the RAC and a leading expert on the separation of Church and State, and the responsibility of being the coordinator of a major new Union for Reform Judaism initiative to promote state-level advocacy for health care reform.

So, I've transformed in the past four months- into a passionate and informed advocate speaking on behalf of the Reform Movement. I've retained my love of community service and the academic scrutiny of social issues, but I've added political activism as a dimension of my social justice pursuits. My blog posts over the next few weeks will be reflections on this new focus of my life--- politics and life in the beltway.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although “charitable choice” and President Bush’s “Faith Based Initiative” have fallen off the front pages, they are far from history. The Roundtable on Religion and Social Policy, which provides comprehensive reporting and legal analysis on government support of faith-based social services, has an important new analysis out this week which both looks at the status of the White House Office on Faith Based and Community Initiatives and offers a variety of views about the office’s work in advance of, and even in the wake of, the 2008 Presidential election.

The Roundtable, whose Advisory Council includes RAC Director Rabbi David Saperstein, offers a variety of perspectives, ranging from the Family Research Council to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

John Dilliuo, who was the White House Office’s first director, offers this observation:

In the mid-1990s, 'faith-based' drew blank stares, but 'faith-based' is now a permanent part of the public policy vernacular. I’ve studied the various presidential candidates' respective positions on public-private partnerships involving religious nonprofit organizations. I've talked to several candidates or their policy advisors. I'm glad to predict that most candidates in both parties, if elected, would be more sympathetic than not to the centrist vision of 'faith-based and community initiatives' that both Gore and Bush endorsed in 2000, and with which Bush began in 2001.

And, as usual, I find myself agreeing with Rev. Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United, who tells the Roundtable that:

Bush administration officials know their days in office are numbered, and I expect we'll see a last-minute frenzy of faith-based activity. They are faced with a hostile Congress, so I expect they will make a final push in 2008 to fund as many faith-based projects as they can. They have put in place executive orders and faith-based centers in federal agencies, and I am sure administration officials will seek to maximize the impact of those actions.

For more on the presidential candidates' position on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, see this handy chart from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Moving back to the U.S. as an adult after a decade in Canada didn’t cause much culture shock. I’d had easy access to American TV shows, fashions were the same, and I was able to do quick temperature conversions from metric to U.S. standard units – ensuring I didn’t wear shorts on a 32 degree day in Washington. What caused my biggest case of culture shock was trying to choose a health insurance plan.

Deciding between HMOs and PPOs was nearly mind boggling. But not as boggling as recognizing that I was lucky simply because I had a choice, while many millions of Americans have none. I have been thinking quite a lot about this in light of the state-wide health care initiative launched by Rabbi Eric Yoffie at the recent URJ Biennial. If the federal government is going to continue taking a pass on health care, it’s time for states to step into the breach.

Canada has made a decision to provide health coverage that is universal, comprehensive, and portable among provinces. Changing jobs or moving across the country? No problem. Need an x-ray or a well-visit check up? It’s guaranteed.

Are there problems with the Canadian health care system? Tons. I have on more than 1 occasion seen my grandmother spend the night on a hospital gurney in a hallway, receiving treatment but without a modicum of privacy. I know people who have waited several months to start radiation therapy for breast cancer. And it is true that Canadians who can afford it will sometimes pay for care in private clinics or cross the border into the U.S. for the same.

It is shameful that the U.S. (along with South Africa) is one of two western, industrialized countries that do not provide all its citizens with health insurance. Yesterday’s report that the U.S. Ranks Worst In Preventable Deaths Among 19 Industrialized Nations is just 1 indication of the ill-effects of our inadequate health care policies.

No health care system is perfect, Canada included. But there is something fundamentally more respectful of humanity in a health care system that starts from a premise of guaranteed coverage for all than one that leaves 47 million people to fend for themselves.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s very time-consuming to follow all the news about candidates and religion in the 2008 Presidential election.  Every day brings scores of new stories.  Like me, you may have been thinking, “if only someone could digest all these reports for me, analyze them, and present them in a pseudo-scientific mathematical model.”  Well, I have good news to report!

The indispensable website Beliefnet has produced a “God-o-Meter” which, in their words “scientifically measures factors such as rate of God-talk, effectiveness—saying God wants a capital gains tax cut doesn't guarantee a high rating—and other top-secret criteria.”  Although the language they use is tongue-in-cheek (I hope!), the effort is a serious one.  It is edited by Dan Gilgoff, Beliefnet's Politics Editor. A former political correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, he is author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War.  The official criteria for candidates’ God-o-Meter ranking can be read here.

If nothing else, the site provides links to a rich array of interesting stories, many of which I had not seen elsewhere.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In Monday’s Washington Post, Ellen Bork, a human rights advocate at Freedom House, wrote a provocative editorial about the unprecedented opportunity which President Bush has in choosing to attend the Olympics this summer in Beijing.  As the first sitting U.S. President to ever attend an Olympic games outside of the United States, Bork points out, Bush has an important chance to challenge China on its domestic policies from religious freedom to the freedom to oppose the government peacefully.  He should do this, she argues, not merely by discussing such topics with Chinese leadership in the abstract but by “meeting with dissidents during his visit to Beijing…[as] the best way to associate himself and the United States with Chinese people who are working the hardest and risking the most on behalf of the freedom about which he so often speaks.”

On the domestic issues Bork’s analysis is spot on.  In addition, in regards to international issues, President Bush must also remember that he is not, as his press secretary has asserted, just merely a “spectator” and should engage in discussions (even in an informal way) with the Chinese government. From China’s continued role in propping up the military junta in Myanmar to its investment in the Sudanese state-owned oil industry (which has led Mia Farrow and others to call the games “the Genocide Olympics,”) there are many issues on which President Bush can increase his engagement.

This a certainly a new modus operandi for political advocacy surrounding the Olympic games.  Few advocates are calling for a boycott.  Instead the focus is on using the fact that China has the Olympics and to push for positive action in advance of and coordination with the Games.  Here at the RAC we have embraced this new method of advocacy. This past fall our Commission on Social Action discussed the importance of using the Olympic Games as a tool for advocacy on Darfur and just last month Rabbi David Saperstein spoke alongside Olympic athlete Joey Cheek and Mia Farrow at the Chinese embassy here in Washington about ending China’s financial support of the Sudanese government and their state-sponsored janjaweed militias.

But ultimately who better to deliver this message then our President?  President Bush has chosen to attend the games.  Let us also hope that he chooses to push for change while he is there.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am a bit of technophile, more than a bit of a political junkie, and I have a long commute every day. So I suppose it’s not too surprising that in recent days my radio listening has tended toward XM Radio’s channel 130 – POTUS 08. That’s right, it’s a channel devoted 24/7 to the presidential election. It’s perfect for those for whom CSPAN-radio is not hard-core enough, and who turn off 18 hours of MSNBC coverage thinking, “I wish I could hear more.”
I was listening this morning (of course!) to hear the stunning New Hampshire primary broken down and was taken with one of the observations (though I can longer remember by whom it was said!). He noted that what was most interesting about the elections thus far – both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary – is that it turns out that what really matters are not commercials, or polls, or pundits but rather voters. In both Iowa and New Hampshire voters went to the polls and made their choices. They issued something of rebuke to the pollsters and pundits who wanted to crown a winner before the voters had a chance to speak. Senator Hillary Clinton was seen as inevitable before Iowa, was being counted out before New Hampshire, and is now in a close two-person (not two-man!) race. The Republican race is wide open – Iowa voters liked Governor Huckabee, New Hampshireites choose Senator McCain, again denying those who would have the contest wrapped up before it really starts.

Now the campaign moves on, and on and on. And now that voting has begun (rather than polling), the campaign is where it belongs – in the hands of the voters. I’ll be watching (and listening!).

Posted by Religious Action Center at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The college experience just became a little more welcoming toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Jewish students. Last month, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life released The Hillel LGBTQ Resource Guide, designed to aid Hillel professionals in welcoming, affirming and engaging LGBTQ college students at their respective universities.

But the guide, which is available in its entirety online, can also benefit Jewish LGBTQ students (and their allies) more directly — it features a number of resources that will appeal to students, including personal stories, a Jewish LGBTQ history, and lists of gay-friendly Jewish organizations and out Jewish professionals. Furthermore, the guide provides helpful sections like “How to Avoid Being Offensive When You Don’t Mean It,” “LGBTQ 101: Sexual Orientation vs. Gender Identity” and a “Glossary of Terms,” which will be useful to everyone interested in embracing acceptance, in a university setting and elsewhere.

Apparently, the 186-page resource guide was a long time coming, the result of a years-long, often-secretive effort by a group of Hillel professionals who began meeting in the early 1990s. The end result is an invaluable Jewish resource that presents relevant information in a way that is both engaging and educational. Kudos, Hillel, for encouraging our campuses to embrace and celebrate the idea that – gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, questioning or otherwise — we are all created b’tselem elohim.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the “No Child Left Behind Act.” This controversial legislation has been debated, challenged, and contested since its inception. This week was no exception. Senator Kennedy, one of the chief architects of the law, placed an op-ed in the Washington Post, expressing his views on how to “fix” the law in the upcoming reauthorization. And the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that states and school districts should not be required to spend their own funds to comply with the stipulations of the law. Yet, President Bush remains committed to his administration’s most-prominent domestic initiative and has threatened to veto any attempts at reauthorization that will “soften” the terms of the law. Happy Birthday NCLB--may the upcoming year be filled with more funding, more learning, and less controversy!

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When the headline came across my email the other day that Tom Lantos would be retiring from Congress after serving for 27 years, my immediate reaction was one of sorrow. Although most American Jews don’t even know his name, Congressman Lantos has etched out for himself an important spot in history as the only Holocaust Survivor to ever serve in the U.S. Congress. From the ashes of the Shoah, Lantos came to America and brought with him the fighting spirit that he embodied during World War II as part of the underground resistance movement trying to defeat the Nazis. He immigrated to America and fought to build a life for himself and his family; he succeeded tremendously, rising to one of the highest offices in the land. He served his country proudly and helped to create a new image of Judaism in America, a Judaism that would not succumb to the destruction of Hitler but would redefine itself as a people and as a religion pursuing the cause of justice for all peoples, regardless of their religion. As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, I grew up with the memory of the Shoah all around me, pervading every aspect of my life. I was blessed to have grandparents who fought for a better life in America for their children and their children’s children. What an example Congressman Lantos has made by showing us that it’s possible to fight not only fight for a better life for your family, but also for the Jewish community at large. Thank you, Congressman Lantos, for your years of service and for serving as a model of what Jewish renewal in this country can be. I wish you a r’fuah sh’leimah.

Posted by Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)